1993/07/31 by Bernardo A. Huberman, Natalie Glance, Natalie S. Glance · 6 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Artificial intelligence #Automaton #Biology #Cellular automaton #Computer science #Dilemma #Ecology #Evolution and Genetic Dynamics #Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation #Granularity #Mathematics #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence #Prisoner's dilemma #Programming language #Psychology #Social dilemma #Social psychology #Space (punctuation) #Territoriality #Theoretical computer science #adap-org #chao-dyn #nlin.AO #nlin.CD
paper · pdf · doi:10.1073/pnas.90.16.7716
8 pages. Also available through anonymous ftp from parcftp.xerox.com in the directory /pub/dynamics as pdilemma.ps
arxiv created 1993/08/12 · openalex publication_date 1993/08/15 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The Prisoner's Dilemma has long been considered the paradigm for studying the emergence of cooperation among selfish individuals. Because of its importance, it has been studied through computer experiments as well as in the laboratory and by analytical means. However, there are important differences between the way a system composed of many interacting elements is simulated by a digital machine and the manner in which it behaves when studied in real experiments. In some instances, these disparities can be marked enough so as to cast doubt on the implications of cellular automata-type simulations for the study of cooperation in social systems. In particular, if such a simulation imposes space-time granularity, then its ability to describe the real world may be compromised. Indeed, we show that the results of digital simulations regarding territoriality and cooperation differ greatly when time is discrete as opposed to continuous.